


A Heart-to-Heart Talk

by LadySolitaire83



Series: I Love You: Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2018 Fics [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, F/M, I Love You Scene (Sherlock: The Final Problem), Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Light Angst, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Post-ILY Scene, Romance, Sherlolly - Freeform, Sherlolly Appreciation Week, Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 06:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySolitaire83/pseuds/LadySolitaire83
Summary: Molly reluctantly lets Sherlock explain what the phone call was about.Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2018, Day 6: The Final Problem





	A Heart-to-Heart Talk

**Author's Note:**

> **Theme: The Final Problem (Canon Compliant)**
> 
> **Rating: T, for implied/referenced drug use/addiction, alcohol use, and swearing.**
> 
> I wanted to try writing a faster and more direct resolution to the 'I love you' scene (unlike my WIP, [_His Constant_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11297766/)) where Molly gets angry and Sherlock (not somebody else) tells her what happened.
> 
> Louise Brealey's [tweet](https://twitter.com/louisebrealey/status/952829631283060736) on the ILY 1st Anniversary also kind of inspired this fic.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy this one!
> 
> I don't own these characters. They belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, BBC, Steven Moffat, and Mark Gatiss. If I owned Sherlock and Molly Hooper, then there would be a lot more Sherlolly in the show. All mistakes are mine. Reviews and constructive criticism are welcome; I only ask that you'd be mindful of your words.

Sitting back against her brown sofa’s armrest with her legs stretched out in front of her and the cushion on her lap, Molly wiped her tears with the heel of her hand and drank some red wine. She sniffled and drank some more as Toby jumped up onto the sofa, settling at her feet. “Hey, Tobes.”

She could feel the judgement in his miaow.

“Do you want to get out of here? Wanna see Grandma and Grandpa and Clea up in Glasgow? We can play marriage counsellors!” She beckoned to him, and he was starting to move towards her when the doorbell rang.

She turned to the direction of the front door and drained her glass of wine. She would bet the full amount of her next paycheque that Sherlock was on the other side of the door. “I’m not ready to see him, Toby.”

The doorbell rang again, making her groan in irritation and set her wine glass down on the end table. She reluctantly rose from the sofa and shuffled down the hallway.

Sure enough, Sherlock’s relieved and hopeful smile greeted her when she opened the front door. He heaved an exhausted sigh as he shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets. “Hi. May I come in?”

“It’s not really a good time, Sherlock. I—”

“Please?” he asked in a soft voice. “Please, just let me in, even if it turns out to be the last time.”

She knitted her eyebrows together at the hitch in his voice towards the end. So, despite her brain screaming at her to turn him away tonight, she decided to listen to the whisper of her heart. She moved aside and opened the door further to let him in.

He turned to the black car idling on the kerb and nodded, like it was some kind of a signal, before crossing the threshold and shutting the door.

“Tea?” she asked on the way back to her lounge-slash-kitchen.

He cleared his throat. “No, I’m good, thanks. I had tea at Mycroft’s.”

“How about some red wine?” She plopped back down on her sofa and pulled her feet up on the seat, wrapping her arms round her legs.

He raised an eyebrow but only shook his head as he sat down on the tan sofa. “How much wine have you had today?” he asked when she refilled her wine glass.

“This is my third, I think?” She took a sip before giving him a hard stare. “I believe I deserve this after the day I’ve had. Don’t you think so, Sherlock?”

He swallowed and nodded. “Y-yeah, of course. I’m not judging you for drinking. I’m just…” He sighed. “I just want to determine if you’re going to remember anything in the morning.”

She scoffed. “Why do you think I’m drinking? I _want_ to _forget_ what happened today!”

A pained expression briefly crossed his face at her words, which made her feel guilty for a second. “Please let me explain what happened.”

“Please do! Because today has been an _absolute shite_ of a day, and that damned phone call just made it even more worse.” She took a sip of her wine. “So please, _please_ do explain what the fuck happened.”

“First, I’d like to apologise for making your bad day worse. And I apologise for being a selfish, inconsiderate arsehole for at least half of our friendship.”

She cocked an eyebrow at that. “Well, at least you’re self-aware. I do appreciate that despite this strong urge to punch you in the face.”

“I deserve that. But—”

“But, before you explain why hurt me this time, may I just say something?”

Sherlock stiffened and laced his fingers together, resting his joined hands on his lap. He took a deep breath before nodding.

“It’s no secret that I’ve loved you for so long,” she began, her voice uncharacteristically sombre. “But I knew you’re not capable of returning my feelings, so I’ve never asked for anything more than your friendship. I just wanted to be treated as your equal, despite how much cleverer you are compared to me, and as your friend, not some insignificant intern. And I’ve always forgiven you for manipulating me for access to my morgue, my lab, and body parts.” She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “I’ve always known that the compliments and the flirting were your ways of buttering me up. Quite frankly, you weren’t exactly subtle.”

He frowned but quickly wiped the pout off his face. He remained silent and still on the tan sofa.

“I’ve never expected you to love me back. So I date, and I even got engaged. And our friendship grew, ever since you humiliated me in front of our friends and John’s girlfriend of the week.” She took another sip of her wine. “And I was doing so well! I’ve been happy being your friend and a part of the Baker Street bunch and dating people I like even if I could never love them like I love you.” A large gulp of the wine. “I was doing fine… until you took me out to solve crimes.”

He swallowed hard, though some kind of hope seemed to join the fear and anguish in his eyes.

Sniffling, she set her wine glass down on the end table and hugged herself. “In Mr Shilcott’s hallway, I saw something in your eyes and in your smile that made me wonder if _you’d_ rather make me very happy rather than watch Tom try his best. Then you kissed me, so _tenderly_ , on the cheek, and I thought, ‘ _God_ , I’ve never been so in love with you.”

“Then I inadvertently caused your break-up with Tom, fake-dated Janine, and took drugs for the Magnussen case.”

“And then you risked certain death to play marriage counsellor, you nearly OD’d on the plane to the exile you never told me about, you practically built a goddamn meth lab in your kitchen, and you rudely dismissed my concerns in that damn ambulance not long before you nearly died.”

He looked abashed by the time she finished listing the ways he had hurt her in the past year or so. “In my defence, I nearly died because Culverton Smith was suffocating me.”

She rolled her eyes at his attempt to bring levity into the room. “As if you weren’t more than halfway there because of the amount of drugs you’d taken after Mary sent you that DVD,” she pointed out. She leant forward and glared at him when he opened his mouth. “And don’t you _dare_ blame a dead woman for sending you that video.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he said, raising his hands as if in surrender.

“Which leads us to today! I was already having a rough day after finding out that a grenade exploded in your flat and after a double shift that saw me perform a post-mortem on the body of a two-year-old child that was kidnapped and murdered by her own father. You know how much a child’s death affects me.

“Then my mum rang me to tell me that she might be staying with me for a while, because she and my stepfather are having marital problems. Then I got an email from my sister telling me that my niece has been diagnosed with leukaemia.”

His eyes softened in sympathy. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

She gave him a thin smile. “Thanks. So you probably understand why calling me and demanding that I say, ‘I love you’ without providing a real and proper explanation would upset me even more, don’t you?” Tears welled up, and she softly groaned. _I really don’t want to cry in front of him right now._

“Yes, and I apologise again,” he said, looking completely remorseful.

“I just don’t understand why you had to use me in whatever fucked-up experiment you were doing for whatever case you’ve been working on. I mean, why did it _have_ to be _me_?” She sniffled and hurriedly wiped the tears rolling down her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You’ve also never lied to me, not in the things that really matter. But you did today. So I’ve been wracking my brain for hours for a reason why you would _lie to me_ and tell me that you loved me. I mean, quite frankly, the first time you said it wasn’t even the least bit convincing. But the second? _Fuck me_ , it got me believing that you _meant_ it.” As her anger dissipated, the sharp pain in her chest, the humiliation, and the dejection returned, and she began sobbing again.

Sherlock moved next to her on the sofa, but he kept his hands to himself. His fingers twitched, though, so she wondered if he wanted to reach out to her, like a small part of her wanted to wrap her arms round him and bury her face in the crook of his neck.

“Have I ever hurt you? Besides that time I slapped you in the face after your drug test in my lab, that is. Please tell me if I ever did something to deserve the pain that you caused me today,” she sobbed, wiping her tears away, even if fresh ones rolled down her cheeks in their place.

He shook his head and clenched his fists on his lap. “No, Molly. You have never hurt me, especially not the way I’ve hurt you. And you don’t deserve what happened. Trust me: I wish I could take away the pain that I caused you today. And it’s killing me that I can’t. And I wish we could get a do-over—I really do. But we can’t. So please let me explain.”

She wiped her tears with her jumper’s sleeve and shifted in her seat to face him. “OK, Sherlock, I’m listening.”

He took a deep breath. “I have a sister named Eurus.” He nodded at her stunned gasp. “She’s a year younger and apparently an ‘era-defining genius,’ incredibly cleverer than I am. She’s even cleverer than Mycroft! But she’s also deeply psychotic, and she murdered my childhood best friend when she was five and I was six. Anyway, she was sent away to an institution soon after that. And I made up a-a story in my head and erased my sister’s existence from my memory to cope with the trauma.”

Despite herself, she reached for his hand and squeezed it in sympathy. But she pulled her hand back just as quickly.

“At some point, she took control of the institution, because she’s so clever that she could reprogram people and make them do her bidding. Anyway, she’d been posing as John’s therapist. If you remember, I asked you to bring an ambulance to her address.” He gave a few quick nods at her wide eyes and her soft curse. “She finally revealed herself to John, who then told me. Mycroft was telling us what he knew when she detonated a grenade in my front room. Thank God only the windows and a few pieces of furniture and electronics were destroyed; the rest were only really scorched. The three of us, as well as Mrs Hudson, managed to escape the explosion without major injuries.

“So we visited her at Sherrinford, where she proceeded to keep us captive and use us—but primarily me—as unwilling subjects for her experiment. On the third task, she decided to put an empty and uncovered coffin in the middle of the room. The lid was propped against the wall, with the steel plate hidden. I had to deduce whom the coffin was for and, honestly, I should have known it was you. But not until Mycroft flipped the lid did I get to see what was on the plate.”

“What did it say?” she asked in a soft voice, although she had a pretty good idea of what it was. 

He looked her right in the eye, his cheeks stained with pink. “It said, ‘I love you.’” His fists relaxed and he clasped his fingers together. “She had cameras in here, Molly.”

She leant forward, her legs unfolding and her feet dropping to the floor, and she tightly gripped the armrest. “What?!”

“Yeah. She had three cameras in your kitchen _alone_. I’ll have to search your entire house for more cameras later. But I promise I will take them all down and smash them with your hammer.” He exhaled. “Anyway, she ordered me to make you say those words without telling you why. And you only had three minutes to say those words before she detonated bombs in here.”

She stood in panic, ready to bolt from her house at any second. “Bombs?! Wh-why would she have bombs in my house?!”

He sighed and gently pulled her back down. “Which turned out to be non-existent; she didn’t actually put bombs in your house. But, at the time, I really thought she was going to kill you. That’s why I chose the direct route: just say those words. I didn’t have time to think of an elaborate and clever ruse to get you to say those words.” He softly chuckled. “But I suppose that was the point.”

Her heart rate had slowed down, but her pulse quickened again as she processed what he was saying. “But then I told you to say it first.”

He gave her what seemed like a relieved smile. “Yes, yes, you did. And I know I should’ve realised how difficult it would be for you to say it. But we’d been such close friends that I thought you’d completely gotten over me. And, for that, I am sorry.

“Thank you, though, because I wouldn’t have realised something if you hadn’t demanded that I say it first.”

“And what is that?”

“That I meant it.” He reached for her hand, and she did not have the heart to pull it back. His earnest gaze was making her heart thump hard. “I do love you, Molly Hooper. And not just as a friend.” He squeezed her hand. “Right after I said it the first time, our interactions played in my mind, as if in a movie. Which prompted me to repeat it, really meaning it this time. Then I ruminated some more on my feelings on the ride back to London and during the debriefing at Mycroft’s. That’s when I determined that it was true for me as it was for you.”

Tears welled up again. But they were happy tears this time. Her ears did not betray her when he said it the second time. She _did_ hear the truth in that second ‘I love you,’ but she had been in too much pain, anger, and denial to believe it. He _did_ love her. _And, by God, I love him too._

His eyes darkened with fear and anxiety when she said nothing. So he gave her hand another squeeze and caressed the back of it with his thumb. “You don’t have to believe me. You don’t even have to forgive me tonight. I truly just needed you to listen to the explanation.”

She lightly rubbed the bandaged part of his hand. “Is that all you need?”

He gently shook his head. “No. But I’d like for you to take your time to decide how we are going to move forward. And, to be honest, I also need to figure out what I want and what I’m ready for.”

“What else do you need?” she asked in a quiet voice.

He slowly leant forward until his forehead rested against hers. “I need to say it again and I need you to say it back, this time without any time constraints and without any threats on our lives, especially yours, real or fake,” he said in an equally quiet voice. “Please, Molly?” A tear rolled down his cheek, and her heart melted.

“All right.”

He pulled back just enough to look her in the eye. “I love you.” It was similar to the second ‘I love you’––full of emotions and truth, but now also had relief and hope.

She could not stop her own tears from falling as she gazed at the plea in his eyes. “I love you,” she whispered back.

And they both sobbed in joy as their foreheads touched again. Eventually, they scooted closer until they could wrap their arms round each other and they could hold each other tightly.

She glanced up at him, and it was like an understanding passed between them as they stared at each other. Time slowed down as his lips descended on hers.

He pulled back long enough for both of them to take a deep breath before their lips met again, this time in a slightly less chaste kiss. Their passion grew until they were full-on snogging.

When they finally came up for air, he gave her forehead another kiss before laying her head on his chest and holding her close.

“Where’s your sister now?” She did not exactly know why she suddenly could not speak above a whisper. But she was afraid that raising her voice, even if it was just a little, would break the intimate spell between them.

“Back in Sherrinford. She can never leave now.” He inhaled the scent of her shampoo and pressed a kiss to her hair.

“What about John and Mycroft? Are they all right?”

“Relatively, yes. Considering that John nearly died in the same manner that Victor Trevor did, he’s upbeat andnot being the little angry man that he usually is.”

She had raised her head when he said that John had nearly died and stared at him in alarm.

“Eurus wanted to drown him, but she helped me save him just in time,” he explained.

“And Mycroft?” She figured that, if Eurus had nearly killed John, then Mycroft must have gone through something equally traumatising or worse.

“He witnessed his friend and his friend’s wife die at the hands of our sister. And she locked him in her old cell when I chose John over him.”

She knitted her eyebrows together. “There’s more to this story than what you’ve told me, isn’t there?”

“Yes, actually. But I just decided to give you enough background to understand what happened during that phone call.”

She nodded. “I see. I take it she chose to end the call as soon as I said the words back?”

“Yeah. She was in control of my phone, as well as everything else in her little experiment.”

“What did she say after she ended the call?”

He sighed. “She said a lot of things, but the most important thing is that she definitely looked affected by our declarations. That’s important, because she is completely divorced from feelings and emotions.”

“Unlike you, who works so hard to stay objective in all things,” she pointed out with a small smirk.

He made a face at that but gave no other response.

“Wait, what happened to the coffin? Did you at least take the lid?”

He looked down on her, sheepishness in his eyes. “Well, no. I, uh, smashed it to pieces with my bare hands,” he replied, glancing at his hands.

“Ah, that explains the bandages. But why?”

“Because the realisation that I love you and all the emotions tied to it were overwhelming. I also couldn’t bear to look at the bloody coffin anymore––I kept picturing you in that coffin and it made me so angry––and I just couldn’t leave it in that room. So I smashed it after laying the damn lid on it.”

Nodding, she pulled back fully and caressed his cheeks. “You’re probably exhausted. You can stay for the night, in my bed with me. If that’s all right, that is.”

“Yeah. In fact, that’s what I’ve been hoping you’d do.”

“Very well. Would you like to tell the full story or at least the first part of it until one of us falls asleep? Whilst I’d hate to make you relive it so soon, I want to know everything that you’re ready to retell.”

He gave her a soft smile. “I don’t mind telling you everything. I know you’d be there to comfort me when it gets too much and to gently chide me when I’m being a drama queen. And you should know everything if you’re going to decide how we’re moving forward.”

She dropped her hands from his face, interlacing her fingers with his, and rose from the sofa. “Why don’t you start getting ready for bed, whilst I deal with these?” she offered, glancing at the nearly empty wine bottle and her abandoned wine glass.

He rose as well. “How about I start dismantling the cameras whilst you deal with the wine? Then we can get ready for bed together. How’s that?”

She grinned at him. “That’s perfect.”

Grinning back, he wrapped an arm round her waist and pulled her to him. He kissed her on the lips. “I love you, Molly Hooper,” he whispered.

“I love you, Sherlock Holmes,” she whispered back.

**Author's Note:**

> Sherlock didn't tell Molly everything about Sherrinford––especially the bit about Moriarty and Eurus meeting––but he will later.
> 
>  ***SPOILER ALERT for _His Constant_ *** They're not sleeping together in this fic.
> 
> * * *
> 
> So what do y'all think? Hate it? Like it? Love it?


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